Disruption of Habits During the Pandemic

In the year 2020, everything we used to think about our habits has been profoundly disrupted. Lockdown still represents an unprecedented experience for all those who went through it, radically affecting our freedom of movement and all those social interactions that used to make up our daily lives. Some people believe that once the pandemic ends, nothing will be the same. Others believe that once the virus becomes weaker or a vaccine is at our disposal and the fear is diminished, everything will go back to normal because the mechanism of habit is in many ways similar to the mechanisms of nature, reiterating the uniformity of its functioning. Which is correct? Both positions, perhaps. When philosophers addressed the issue of customs, namely collective habits, they have generally emphasized that caution us required when it comes to changing them – and indeed, if we look back at history… Could pandemics affect shared habits in specific territories, habits that were ultimately generated in reaction to other natural risks and threats?

Author Biography

Marco Piazza is Associate Professor in History of Philosophy at University of Roma Tre. His work focuses on the relation between philosophy, literature and the history of concepts. Piazza has been visiting professor at the Metropolitan Manchester University, and is associate researcher at the ITEM-Institut des Textes & Manuscrits Modernes of CNRS-ENS (Team Écritures des Lumières) and at the FMSH-Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. Corinna Guerra, associate researcher at the Laboratoire d’Excellance HASTEC, obtained her PhD in the History of Science and Technology at the University of Bari (Italy). From 2011 to 2013 she was a fellow of the Italian Institute for Historical Studies and in 2016 was made postdoctoral researcher at the Centre Koyré (EHESS-CNRSMNHN) in Paris.